Cheney: Architect of 9/11?

On the Heros & Zeros page I assert, “Dick Cheney was the architect of the 9/11 attacks.”

A reader, Bill R, asks. “In what way do you think that Dick Cheney was the architect of the 9-1-1 attacks?”

Let’s turn back the clock and see how this happened.

May 8, 2001.
Bush 43 directs Cheney to oversee the “Office of National Preparedness.” This new entity is responsible for the nationwide training and preparation effort “to ensure that all facets of our response to the threat from weapons of mass destruction are coordinated and cohesive.” This gives Cheney the power to coordinate and schedule training exercises among the civilian and military. [Read the announcement on the official White House site.]

June 1, 2001.
Cheney alters the military’s rules of engagement for hijacked aircraft (innoculously classified as “Derelict Airborne Objects”). The military must now ask the President/VP/SecDef for permission to shoot down DAOs. [Read the actual doc.]

July 2001.
Cheney coordinates planning/scheduling of five independent yet overlapping military operations or FTXs (Field Training Exercises) for 9/11/2001:
1) “Vigilant Warrior,” FTX, purpose is classified
2) “Vigilant Guardian,” FTX hijacking drill requiring participation of all of NORAD
3) “Northern Vigilance,” mil-op redeploying aircraft from NY & DC area to Russian Arctic
4) “Northern Guardian,” mil-op redeploys 2/3 of a Langley AFB fighter squadron to Iraq and Iceland (yes, Iceland!)
5) “Amalgam Warrior ,” NORAD mil-op, purpose is classified
[Read the USA Today article.]

September 11, 2001.
The five simultaneous operations/exercises simulating hijacked aircraft confuse NORAD, FAA and other military authorities when the real attacks begin. This confusion delays their response, allowing the attacks to progress unempeded.

Through the Secret Service’s capability to tap into all FAA and NORAD radar Cheney monitors the progress of the attacks. Bush 43 is preoccupied with a pet goat in Florida, leaving Cheney in charge of the “National Command Authority” in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) at the White House.

As a “hijacked” aircraft approaches the Pentagon, Secretery of Transportation Norman Mineta, sitting with Cheney in the PEOC, relates the events (this testimony to the 9/11 Commission was stricken from its final report):

“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?”

Norman Mineta made it clear to reporters– who verified his quotes in written text alongside him–that Mineta was indeed talking about a stand down order not to shoot down hijacked aircraft headed for the Pentagon.

The aircraft is NOT shot down but is allowed to hit the Pentagon. Obviously Cheney had not issued a shoot-down order but a stand-down order. (Because of the rule-change  on 6/1/2001 the military was not allowed to shoot the aircraft down on their own authority.) This is not negligence, but, when you recall the foreknowledge Cheney had, treason.

Contrary to Mineta’s sworn testimony, Cheney has denied being in the PEOC at the time this occurred. This is perjury.

As former LAPD police detective Michael Ruppert points out in Chapter 19 of his excellent and well-researched book “Crossing the Rubicon” Cheney had the means, motive, and opportunity sufficient to make a legal case against him for the crimes of 9/11.

July 8-August 4, 1990: Interesting Aside
This was not the first time Cheney had coordinated a military exercise that ended up mimicking real-life-attacks. In 1990, when he was Secretary of Defense under Bush 41, he set up a wargame called “Internal Look” to simulate an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait–before it actually happened.

General Norman Schwarzkopf was interviewed for the documentary “Hidden Wars of Desert Storm” where he said, “We went ahead and did an exercise, what’s called a command post exercise, which is what Internal Look was to test our ability to deal with this particular scenario … Just so happened we were in the middle of conducting the Internal Look command post exercise at the same time the crisis developed in the gulf.”

Gosh, what a coincidence!

While the exercise was underway (July 9 through August 4, 1990) Saddam attacked Kuwait on August 2, 1990. As the exercise unfolded, the real-world movements of Iraq’s air and ground forces eerily paralleled the scripted scenario of the war game. So closely did actual intelligence reports resemble the fictional exercise messages, the latter had to be prominently stamped “Exercise Only.”

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